Lakeville Man of the Year: Team effort brought town Green Community status

Friday

Dec 28, 2012 at 12:01 AMDec 28, 2012 at 8:05 AM

It isn't easy being a Green Community. But thanks to the considerable efforts of a group of town residents, Lakeville this summer became the first in SouthCoast to achieve that designation.

BILL ABRAMSON

LAKEVILLE — It isn't easy being a Green Community. But thanks to the considerable efforts of a group of town residents, Lakeville this summer became the first in SouthCoast to achieve that designation.

For two years, the Energy Advisory Committee, chaired by Larry Simpson, worked to meet a stringent set of clean energy guidelines, including a five-year plan to reduce energy consumption.

It took a year to assemble the necessary articles and warrants required by the process and then get them to town meeting, Simpson explained.

"We rezoned all industrial properties to allow energy companies to come in with expedited permitting," he said. "We passed the energy stretch code that calls for greater energy efficiency for any new construction or renovations. The building code was headed in that direction. We just accelerated the process by 18 months."

Said Simpson: "Once we did that, we had the canvas and the paint. Now we had to paint the picture."

It turned out to be a work of art. Earlier this year, Lakeville and 16 other cities and towns were named Green Communities and earlier this month, another seven were added to the list. That brings the total to 110, less than a third of the municipalities statewide. Lakeville remains the only one in SouthCoast.

For all the work involved over a two-year period to achieve the goal, chairman Simpson and the town's Energy Advisory Committee have been named The Standard-Times 2012 Lakeville People-of-the-Year. Nominations for the award came from the community and members of the newspaper staff. Recipients were selected by a newsroom committee.

While Simpson was the man out front, he stressed he was backed by a strong group that included Town Administrator Rita Garbitt, Selectmen John Powderly and Derek Maksy, and residents Jim Porter, Jim Kenney, Don Foster, Pam Rasa, Mike Nolan, Terrence Flynn, Bob Iafrate, Rick Valez and Nate Darling.

There was plenty of prep work to be done.

"We needed to find a baseline energy use for all municipal facilities and measure what we were using," Simpson said, adding that to save the requisite 20 percent of that energy within five years, the committee had to "identify projects that would bring those savings, assess those projects and their costs."

Now it's time to kick off those projects, he said. Lake-ville's efforts will get a boost from a $158,275 grant that came with the Green Communities designation.

At Town Hall, lights will be changed to more energy-efficient ones and the fire station will get new garage doors to prevent the wind from blowing in as it does now.

"Our largest energy user is the schools but, since we are regionalized, we would have to get approval from Freetown to do anything at the Apponequet complex," Simpson pointed out.

"At Assawompset, there are lights control sensors and we have the ability to do it now because that building is a Lakeville building. No matter what happens to that school, we're still going to need the lights and it's the right thing to do."

As for being the first and only Green Community in SouthCoast, Simpson said Lakeville stands out on a map showing those who've gained the status across Massachusetts.

"On the map, Lakeville is an island," Simpson said. "I am proud to be that island."

But that said, he and the committee are working to spread the environmental

gospel.

"We tried to tell others in the SouthCoast area that you can do this, too," he said. "It's not rocket science. ... It's a new environmentalism that is business-based as a way to save money. It stopped being all about recycling and now it's about good business, and the byproduct of good business is economic development."

As for what's next, Simpson said it's time to re-task the committee and he'd like to take it in the direction of a solar strategy for Lakeville. The goal, as it has been from the start, is "making a measurable contribution to the community."

In addition to the committee members, Simpson said special thanks goes out to Planning Board Chairman Jim Marot, the Department of Energy's Seth Pickering and support from current and former selectmen, school officials and state legislators.